Handhelds!
When I was seven years old, my dad had one of those Mattel handheld football games, and I loved it. I bet if you grabbed a few Gen X-ers and told them to close their eyes, they'd all be able to identify that game by the click-click-click-chirrrrp! sound which is as linked to that game as "D'Oh!" is to Homer Simpson.
As a member of the video game generation, I've been through most of the console systems, watched the rise and fall of video arcades, and written extensively about some very memorable games. I am a sucker for anything that celebrates the games of our lives, and Donald Melanson's A Brief History of Handheld Videogames at Engadget is hawesome. He starts at the aforementioned (and pictured) Mattel Football, and works his way through the Atari Lynx, past all the incarnations of the Gameboy, to the PSP.
We've come a long way in the last 28 years, baby.
My dad had one of those and all my brothers and sisters fought over it to play it. I never got into it though. Those were the days........Brings back the memories of the holidays when everyone would grab a handheld game and play away.
Posted by: morgan | March 07, 2006 at 05:29 AM
My God! That is the first hand held video game I ever bought! I played with it for hours...
Yes, I'm old...
Posted by: Sukee | March 07, 2006 at 06:08 AM
Eep! OMG! I had that and the baseball one. I loved the baseball one.
Now, it makes me wish I still had it. The farthest I have of my childhood electronic toys is my Atari 2600.
Posted by: Melissa Wisler | March 07, 2006 at 06:49 AM
According to the article, "It’s almost impossible to understate the impact of Nintendo’s Game Boy."
Er, no it isn't. Heck, I'll do it right now: "the Gameboy had no impact."
Posted by: Glen Raphael | March 08, 2006 at 12:55 PM
Still got my orig. Mattel Football. Still works. But, without waking the kid to dig in the desk for it, I can't remember if it's my first or second [orig.] one.
I think the first had hyphens for markers, and the second just had dots.
Bought my sister a new, smaller, Merlin from Target for xmas this past year. Haven't tried it, but I assume it'll do all the same things as the orig. one she had.
Posted by: EdwoodCA | March 08, 2006 at 11:56 PM